She is a blur of cinematic color through the woods. Taking with her the fire and the canvas color of the mess hall and the metal rims of the man’s glasses. And Linda is running too. At first chasing her and then running just like Joni. She is aware there is something in the woods, beyond the flora and the fauna. Beyond the thick-trunked trees and their coiling ferns. Beyond that birds that are silent in the night and insects that watch her as they pass. She thinks of fungus, their wild, unbound roots that fly through the air, calling to each other. She feels herself brushed by sap and rainwater and dirt and the cold where the dark and rainy winter has not yet released its firm grip. There is something in the woods that feels as old as the woods or maybe older. Something hulking and camouflaged. Teeth like those coastal roots that pull up from the earth, eyes yellow like mushrooms. Deep inside herself, a voice tells her to slow down and calm down. The voice reminds her that she is high, that she is tripping. That she almost died a week ago and all of this is new. Including the life she is now committed to seeing through. But it’s not the voice that stops her running, it’s Linda’s well-muscled arm that hooks through her own and yanks her back until they are both sprawled across the soft undergrowth of the forest.
Linda looks at her, all pupil, rubs hard and then harder at her temples and opens her mouth even though it seems like a great effort to do it. “We have to stop running.” Which implies what Joni thought. That at some point Linda stopped chasing and starting running just like her.
Joni pants. It’s hard to tell where her sneakers end and the great forest floor begins. The spot where Linda is holding her just looks like one arm. Like they’ve melded together which feels, now, like a great comfort, but Joni still says, “I am so scared.”
“Of what?” But they both seem to agree that neither knows or wants the answer. “Jesus.” Linda says, army crawling a little closer through the brush. “Jesus Christ, what the hell got you so spooked?”
“I have no idea,” Joni says and it’s true. Especially now that she’s away from the fire. Colors still flutter at the corners of her eyes and the leaves still move like little dancers, and there’s a spot in her brain that feels unnervingly porous, but she feels a little clearer now. And in her clearer mind, the man across from the fire is just a man. Still skinny, still charming and gesticulating in that way that sets off all kinds of alarms, but when she imagines his smile it looks authentic now. Simple. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know if this stuff is for me.” Linda says nothing for a moment. An owl hoots from a far away tree. And then she starts laughing. That silly sort of slumber party laughter that most girls grow out of. Nose scrunched, smile wide. She squeezes Joni’s hand tighter and then Joni starts to laugh too. Her laughter has a physical presence. She can see it rippling out into the night air. Linda’s too. They cross paths, creating butterflies of sound. Joni feels her heart opening - it feels physically like it’s becoming bigger, more vital, more open - and she thinks ~wow, I love this woman, I’m so glad I met her~ and it’s drug addled and it’s wild, but Joni hasn’t felt like this in such a long time. Like a little girl in a friend’s basement, flashlight under her chin. “Or I don’t know,” Joni says, as Linda helps her to her feet, “maybe it is.”
They’re not lost, per se. Or at least not in a way that matters. They made their way through the forest by the light of the stars and the heavy moon and stumbled back onto the road. The paved road, the big one. The one that goes from the ferry to the town and back and nowhere else. So even though they don’t know where exactly they are, they’ll find their way to one side or the other before long.
Joni’s not sure she’s ever felt at ease like this and wonder if it’s the drug - which is still coursing through her in an abstract way that feels like it could at any moment shift gears back to terror - or if it’s because Linda is here and they are walking in step with each other on the side of the road like kids. But maybe it’s the night too. Out here, the stars swirl. So big and so clear that they’re almost disorienting. The night is cool but not cold enough for shivering and so there’s a cleanness in the air. A freshness that hangs at the back of Joni’s throat. Tinged with coastal pine and the faint bitter taste of the mushrooms. There’s a stillness inside of her even as her body feels like it’s vibrating with potential. A stillness that stays steady even as a dark pickup pulls up beside them.
The engine on the thing sounds a little bad, not that Joni knows anything about cars, but it’s rumbling loudly, the whole truck shakes a little as is idles in front of them. The windows aren’t tinted but there’s a layer of grime of them that keeps Joni from seeing the driver even when the cab lights flicker on. It’s only when he leans over to crank down the passenger window that Joni sees who it is, but by then she’s sure that she’s hallucinating. But Linda says “Sebastian, right?” so she’s not hallucinating even if the edges of her peripheral vision have started pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
“Yeah,” and his voice is a deep, rumble. A movie cowboy voice, the kind of voice a lot of men don’t have but wish they did. “Need a ride?”
Joni notices the tattoo when he turns his head to glance back at them, his dark hair swishing as he moves. She can’t really tell what is is, just the very top of it peaking above the collar of his flannel. It looks old, a little scratchy. He looks at Joni - his clear, dark eyes searching her face - then nods curtly. She nods back.
Joni settles back into the bench seat next to Linda. It feels like the stars followed her down from the sky and the trip is now beginning to feel uneasy. She squirms inside herself. Linda rests her head on Joni’s shoulder. Jon wants to ask her how she’s feeling but the silence in the truck feels almost sacred now. “Where you ladies headed?” His voice has a little twang, not southern exactly, but different from here. Maybe. Joni pauses, realizing that she doesn’t really know where the cabin is in relation to where they are, or in relation to anything really, and she feels like a kid lost in a department store.
“You know that convenience store on the west side of the island?” Linda’s voice is heavy with sleep and Joni wonders what time it is. It hadn’t been that late when they first headed to the colony, but she has no idea how much time has passed and the truck’s clock has a big crack right where the numbers should be. Sebastian nods then reaches over to flip on the radio. The high makes every movement slow and gives it a halo of light, so when he moves, Joni can look carefully at his hand. Long fingers, neat nails. Another tattoo on his wrist that she can’t quite make out. “It’s a cabin near there.” Joni rolls her eyes over to look at Linda and tries to remember when she told her where grandad’s cabin is. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the island really is that small. She wonders if her grandad ever went down to the colony - the buildings look old enough to have been there for a long, long time - but she imagines not. He wasn’t really that kind of guy. Open minded.
Sebastian cranks the driver’s side window down and lets the night in. Out here on the road it smells overwhelmingly like pine. Woodsmoke too. Maybe from the colony bonfire or maybe from another. Joni doesn’t know how many people live out here. The forest keeps its secrets though she really hasn’t asked it to reveal any of them now that she’s thinking about it. Sebastian shifts to keep the steering wheel steady with his knees and lights himself a cigarette with an old zippo. He glances back at them, raising both eyebrows as if to ask ~what about you ladies~ but neither of them respond and so he rests one wrist on the steering wheel and blows smoke out into the night.
The cabin looks warm when Sebastian pulls his truck up to it. Joni left all the lights on apparently and it glows like an oil lantern. He pulls all the way up to the front and as the truck settles, Joni looks up at the house. The windows look like watching eyes and the screen door has come loose in the wind, tapping and rattling.
Linda and Joni help each other out of the cab of the truck. Linda thanks Sebastian and Joni thinks she does, but her brain and her mouth feel like two separate machines struggling to coordinate, gears turning all the wrong ways. “Hey,” Sebastian calls as they head toward the cabin. They both turn but he nods once at Joni, cigarette between his teeth. “What’s your name?”